Chapter 4

I moved through the crowd with purpose, my team forming a silent, intimidating wedge around me. People parted, their curious and angry faces turning to watch our procession. We weren't in combat gear anymore, just standard-issue black fatigues, but it was enough. The message was clear.

As I reached the stairs to the stage, Liam' s private security moved to block me. I didn' t even break my stride.

"Commander Chen," one of them said, holding up a hand. "This is a private event."

"This is a crime scene," I replied, my voice low. I looked him in the eye. "Get out of my way."

He hesitated, then stepped aside.

I walked up the steps and onto the stage. The bright lights were blinding. Liam stopped his speech mid-sentence, his jaw dropping. The crowd murmured, a wave of confusion and excitement rippling through them. Sera' s face, projected on the giant screens behind the stage, transformed from adoration to pure shock, then to fury.

She strode toward me, her heels clicking angrily on the stage floor.

"What are you doing here, Alex? Get off this stage!"

I ignored her. My focus was on Liam, who was trying to regain his composure, puffing up his chest.

"This is harassment!" he shouted into the microphone, his voice a little shaky. "This is a prime example of the military overreach I was talking about!"

I walked right up to the podium, standing next to him. I looked out at the sea of faces, at the news cameras now all pointed directly at me.

"Liam Vance," I said, my voice calm and carrying, no need for the microphone. "Tell me about the X-47 drone guidance module. Explain its signal-hopping algorithm. Tell this crowd how you solved the thermal regulation issues in its power core."

Liam stared at me, his mouth opening and closing like a fish. He had no idea what I was talking about. These were the technical details of the systems he had stolen, systems he had no hand in creating.

"I... my team handles the technical specifics," he stammered. "I' m the visionary."

"You' re a thief," I said, my voice dropping but still carrying a deadly weight. "You' re a fraud who took military technology, got 108 soldiers killed, and now you' re hiding behind your sister and crying to the media."

I turned to the crowd. "This man isn' t a visionary. He' s a parasite who built his 'dream' on stolen valor and the lives of better men."

Humiliation and rage washed over Liam' s face. He was speechless.

Sera, however, was not.

She let out a cry of fury and lunged, not at me, but at Chloe, who had followed me onto the stage and was standing a few feet away. Sera' s nails were out, aiming for Chloe' s face.

"You did this!" she shrieked. "You turned him against us!"

Chloe sidestepped the attack with practiced ease, grabbing Sera' s wrist. But I was faster. I moved between them, pushing Chloe behind me and catching Sera' s other arm.

"Don' t you ever touch one of my soldiers," I snarled, my face inches from hers. The heat of her anger was palpable.

"Let go of me!" she hissed, struggling in my grip.

I held her firm. "This is over, Sera."

"It' s not over!" she cried, her eyes wild. She looked at me, her expression shifting, trying a new tactic. The anger vanished, replaced by a pleading look. "Alex, please. We can talk about this. This isn' t you. This is just a misunderstanding."

She was trying to manipulate me, to pretend the last few days hadn't happened, that our history could erase her sins.

"There is no misunderstanding," I said, my voice cold.

Liam, seeing an opportunity, slid to the floor, clutching his chest and gasping dramatically.

"My heart... I can' t breathe..." he wheezed, looking up at Sera with wide, terrified eyes. "Sera, he' s trying to kill me."

It was a pathetic, transparent performance. But Sera bought it completely.

Her head whipped back to me, her eyes filled with a venomous hatred that I had never seen before.

"Look what you' ve done!" she screamed. She pulled free from my grasp and knelt by Liam' s side. She looked up at me, over the form of her whimpering brother, and made her final declaration.

"I will stand by him, Alex. Always. He is my family. He is my priority. Not you. Not your men. Him."

The words hung in the air, a death sentence for whatever was left between us. The cameras captured it all. The choice she had just made, broadcast to the world.

I looked down at her, cradling that fraud on the stage, and I felt nothing. The love was gone. The anger was gone. All that remained was a vast, cold emptiness.

I finally understood. She wasn't just blinded by loyalty. She was broken. She was complicit. And she was utterly, irredeemably lost.